Public Check-In Sessions Scheduled for Medicine Bow National Forest Landscape Vegetation Analysis

Media Contact: Aaron Voos, (307) 745-2323

News Release (PDF)

(LARAMIE, Wyo.) Jan. 16, 2018 – The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) will be hosting four public check-in sessions in late January for the Landscape Vegetation Analysis project. The sessions are meant to gauge public questions about the project, provide answers, show responsiveness to comments, update the project status, and distribute information. They will promote one-on-one interactions between Forest Service staff, project cooperating agencies, and the public.

There will be no formal presentation at the discussion sessions and they are not part of a comment period associated with the project analysis. USFS staff and select project partners will be available to discuss details and answer questions. A list of which agencies will be on hand and which USFS staff will be in attendance on each night is available below.

All four check-in sessions will be from 4-7 p.m. The Saratoga sessions will be Tues. and Wed., Jan. 23 and 24, at the Brush Creek/Hayden District Office, 2171 Highway 130, while the Laramie sessions will be Tues. and Wed., Jan. 30 and 31, at the Lincoln Community Center, 365 West Grand Ave.

Along with multiple cooperating agencies, the U.S. Forest Service developed a landscape-scale proposal to accelerate the pace and scale of active forest restoration using a wide range of tools. Those tools include tree thinning, harvest, and hazard removal, as well as prescribed burning in the Sierra Madre and Snowy Ranges of the Medicine Bow National Forest (MBNF).

This is a broad, integrated project with net benefits in multiple resource areas, including, but not limited to timber and fuels management. Additional benefits for wildlife habitat, municipal water supply, road maintenance, viewsheds, recreation opportunities, and public safety will result from the project due to a more mosaic, diverse, and resilient landscape. A good example of recreation benefit will be seen in improved hunting access and big game wildlife habitat due to the removal of accumulated dead timber, both standing and downed.

The Proposed Action was presented to the public in July of 2017 and a public comment period was held. Open houses were advertised and held in Saratoga and Laramie in August, 2017.

The Forest is working with multiple cooperating agencies to modify the Proposed Action in response to comments and constraints. A Modified Proposed Action will be analyzed and documented in a draft environmental impact statement (EIS), scheduled for release in May, 2018. That release will be followed by a formal opportunity for public engagement during the 45-day comment period. Open house meetings or similar public events will be held during the comment period.

Thus far, comments and feedback from cooperating agencies and the public have resulted in new maps to explain the project, development of post-decision implementation checklists, as well as removal of permanent road construction associated with the project. Moving forward, the USFS is requesting to hear what type of future public input mechanism is desired to track project progress.

Public input and feedback is welcomed at any stage of this and any other projects.

This large-scale analysis will provide the environmental foundation for 10-15 years’ worth of projects in one decision. It is a different kind of analysis which is based on rapidly changing environmental conditions and is responsive to actual on-the-ground conditions. Analysis will occur using existing data and a narrow range of options, as well as engagement with stakeholders and the public. Field analysis of specific sites will take place after the NEPA decision but before individual projects occur.

The Landscape Vegetation Analysis project is intended to authorize flexible management of forest vegetation in an effort to utilize beetle-killed timber while it is still marketable and to reduce the risk of wildfire near communities.

Across the MBNF, 360,000 acres have been identified in the Proposed Action that could benefit from some type of treatment over the next 10-15 years. Not all of those acres would be treated, as some acres will be eliminated due to on-the-ground conditions and operational feasibility.

As with many vegetation projects that occur each year on the Medicine Bow National Forest, some temporary road construction would be necessary to reach areas where vegetation could be treated by machinery, prescribed fire, or hand tools. Temporary roads would be decommissioned following treatment activities to preclude future motorized use and to restore ecological function.

Strong partnerships and cooperative working relationships are necessary to advance forest resiliency and health at a landscape scale. As such, the Forest Service has been working with numerous cooperating agencies since March of 2017 to develop this project. Cooperating Agencies, consisting of State, local, and Federal officials, have been instrumental in helping to frame the Proposed Action, refine the project purpose and need for action, and to identify values at risk in need of protection.

The Proposed Action document, maps, and other project information are available on the Forest web site at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=51255.

For more information please contact District Ranger Frank Romero at (307) 745-2337 or feromero@fs.fed.us.

Public Check-In Sessions

• January 23 – 24: Saratoga, Wyo., USFS Brush Creek/Hayden District Office, 2171 Highway 130
  • Staffing: USFS timber/wildlife/District Ranger, Wyoming State Forestry, Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District
• January 30 – 31: Laramie, Wyo., Lincoln Community Center, 365 W. Grand Ave.
  • Staffing: USFS timber/planning/District Ranger, Wyoming State Forestry, Laramie Rivers Conservation District (Tues.), Wyoming Game & Fish (Wed.)

Project key facts:

• The Landscape Vegetation Analysis project (LaVA) will be consistent with the Medicine Bow National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (2003).
• This project is not the same project (s) as the hazard tree clearing that has been taking place along area highways and Forest roads over the past few years. IE: Hazard tree removal with WYDOT and Carbon Power & Light, which occurred along Wyoming Highway 130.
• Most activities on the MBNF have historically been planned on a smaller scale, with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis for individual projects. This project is different due to rapidly changing conditions.
• LaVA is intended to authorize flexible management of forest vegetation using tree cutting and/or prescribed burning in the Sierra Madre and Snowy Ranges.
  • Those two ranges, which comprise the LaVA analysis area, include roughly 850,000 acres of National Forest System lands.
• Within those ranges, it has been determined that 613,118 acres could potentially be treated. This excludes areas such as Wilderness. The Proposed Action acreage below is an even further condensed subset of these Treatment Opportunity Areas.
• The Proposed Action being analyzed is:
  • Stand initiating or even-aged treatment methods (such as clear-cutting) that would not exceed 95,000 acres.
  • Uneven-aged or intermediate treatments (such as commercial thinning or selective harvesting some trees and leaving others) that would not exceed 165,000 acres.
  • Other vegetation treatments including prescribed fire, mastication, hand thinning that would not exceed 100,000 acres.
  • For a total that would not exceed 360,000 acres over the next 10-15 years.
    • This total equates to roughly 30% of the Medicine Bow National Forest.
      • It is within the larger 1.2 million total acres on the Forest, within the 850,000 acres of the two mountain ranges, and within the 613,118 acre area that has the opportunity to be treated.
• Temporary road construction of approximately 600 miles, none in Inventoried Roadless Area, would be necessary to reach areas where vegetation could be treated by machinery, prescribed fire, or hand tools.
• The approach is consistent with goals outlined by the 2015 Governor’s Task Force on Forests, the 2011 Western Bark Beetle Strategy, and the 2010 Wyoming Statewide Forest Resource Strategy.
• On March 22, 2017, Forest Service Chief Thomas L. Tidwell designated the majority of the MBNF as a landscape-scale insect and disease area under Section 602(d) of the Healthy Forests Restoration Action of 2003 (HFRA), as amended by the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Farm Bill). LaVA will use options granted in the HFRA and the Farm Bill.
• Coarse filters have been used to define potential treatment areas at this time. Additional filters will refine and narrow in on those potential treatment areas for the analysis and during implementation.
• Filters used to date include: Forest Plan Direction; Law, Regulation, Policy; and Leader’s Intent.
• There has been a high level of participation in the process to date from formal Cooperating Agencies. Those groups include federal, state, and local agencies.